By: Michael Caldwell
Cut the flesh and let the blood spill–
Whatever it takes to keep the voices still.
Manic days and psychotic nights
Distort his sense of what’s wrong and what’s right.
Life was traumatic when he was a kid
From the fucked up shit his mom and dad did.
He saw things that a child should never see–
In his unhappy and dysfunctional family.
He has no foundation with which to take hold.
How to live life, he was never told,
So self-sabotage is his means to an end,
Doing stupid shit that others can’t comprehend
Is it a surprise the direction his life takes?
God or fate has played high stakes.
Is it fair? Does he get what he deserves,
When life has so obviously thrown him a curve?
So suicidal thoughts are his everyday norm
His view of life is jaded and torn.
Hallucinations devour him from within,
A demented precursor to his delusional end.
These daily intrusions poison his mind.
Further complicated with crack and cheap wine,
Through which his diagnosis dictates his choices
By manifesting randomly as disembodied voices.
He self-medicates–an insidious foe;
It disarms with pleasure then conquers with woe,
Leading him down a treacherous trail
To a short life of misery in a cramp prison cell.
It’s the Fourth of July and he smokes his last rock.
No money left, nothing left to hock.
Then voices surround him with a vehement command:
”Murder the enemy or your soul shall be damned!”
So he flogs a fellow with a length of lead pipe;
In the wake of delusion the man lost his life.
Community outreach could have checked this ordeal,
But who cares for the addicted and the mentally-ill?
The police detain him and he goes on trial–
One judge, twelve jurors, and a thick arrest file.
They condemn him to life for society’s protection,
In the MDOC–the Department of Corrections?
To moderate the symptoms that bedevil his brain,
He’s prescribed a cocktail for the criminally insane,
It’s a sedating solution to manage the mad,
Which kills his personality–the spark he once had.
Stupefied, he’s stored in a box;
An eight by twelve cell that’s mostly kept locked.
But quality of life isn’t an MDOC objective;
It’s shoving noses in shit–a statewide directive.
Now a slave in a system wielding tyrannical power,
He’s forced to work for pennies on the hour.
It’s that or debt with indigent store–
But, then, either choice leaves him abjectly poor.
Every day is punishment anew.
Contemporary rehabilitation gone askew
Life has no meaning within incarceration,
Where misery never ebbs or goes on a vacation.
So his sentence and suffering are synonymous terms,
When the reality of rape repeatedly returns.
He can’t protect himself from psychopathic peers
Once panic seizes him with unimaginable fear.
The years slowly pass till he can’t stand any more
He covers up the window and locks his cell door.
He ties up a sheet and pulls it over his head,
And without a second thought he jumps off the top bed.
He swings back and forth, choking and writhing,
But no longer will there be the pain of surviving.
Though in an attempt to somehow repay–
He coincides his death with Independence Day.
The punishment model has exacted its toll.
With no hope for his humanity or eventual parole,
He opted for a pauper’s grave out on Cherry Hill.
A place for the unwanted–the mentally ill.
No one claimed his body, no one said goodbye.
No one in his family gave a fuck that he died.
Indeed no one cared about his tragic and untimely end.
Because no one in the entire world qualified as his friend.
But no longer will this man be a public menace.
He’s unburdened the people and paid his penance.
Ending a life of misunderstood notoriety,
And becoming another victim of American society.
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Anyone interested in corresponding with the author is welcome to write:
Michael Caldwell #494871
1575 West Bluewater Highway
Ionia, Michigan 48846
Or via email through jpay.com